Bio

Bruce Y. Lee, MD, MBA is a writer, journalist, professor, systems modeler, AI (artificial intelligence)/computational and digital health expert, entrepreneur, and avocado eater, not always in that order.

He has over two-and-a-half decades of experience in industry and academia developing artificial intelligence (AI), mathematical and computational modeling, and other computer-aided approaches to assist a wide range of decision makers in health, medicine, and public health. Currently, he is a Professor of Health Policy and Management at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Public Health where he is the Executive Director of the Center for Advanced Technology and Communication in Health (CATCH) at CUNY, which aims to develop and implement new technologies and approaches to help decision making and communication in health and public health, and Executive Director of the Artificial Intelligence, Modeling, and Informatics for Nutrition Guidance and Systems (AIMINGS) Center which serves as an AI Center for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Nutrition for Precision Health (NPH) Consortium.

Dr. Lee is also the founder (in 2007) and Executive Director of PHICOR (Public Health Informatics, Computational, and Operations Research, Twitter handle @PHICORTeam) and founder and CEO of Symsilico, which develops and uses computational methods, models, and tools to help decision-making. His previous positions include serving as Professor by Courtesy at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, Associate Professor of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Executive Director of the Global Obesity Prevention Center (GOPC), Director of Operations Research at the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC), Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Senior Manager at Quintiles Transnational, working in biotechnology equity research at Montgomery Securities, and co-founding Integrigen.

Dr. Lee has been the Principal Investigator for over $60 million in grants/contracts from a variety of organizations and agencies including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research (AHRQ), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), UNICEF, the Global Fund, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). This has included being the PI of two different NIH U54 Center grants and a major USAID consortium known as the Strategic Program for Analyzing Complexity and Evaluating Systems (SPACES) from 2014-2024. He has served as a systems science, AI, and computer modeling expert for a range of different entities, including serving on advisory boards and committees for the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM), the World Health Organization (WHO), the NIH, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), and a number of other organizations. For example, he Chairs the Evidence Synthesis and Communications in Diet and Chronic Disease Relationships standing committee and serves on the Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) and Roundtable on Obesity Solutions (ROOS) for NASEM.

Dr. Lee has authored over 295 scientific publications (including over 110 first author and over 120 last author), most of which have been original research, and nearly all of which have focused of systems science and computer/AI methods. He has also authored three books.

Dr. Lee has written extensively for the general media. He is a Senior Contributor for Forbes, covering a wide range of health-related topics including medicine, wellness, digital health, and the business of health and having written over 2,000 articles with many of them having been selected as Editors Choices. His articles have been read over 88 million times since January 2019. He is a regular contributor for Psychology Today, where he has a regular blog called "A Funny Bone to Pick" that has been read over 4.2 million times since 2021, maintains the “Minded by Science” newsletter on Substack, and serves on the D.C. Science Writers Association (DCSWA) board as well. Additionally, his writing has appeared in a number of other media outlets including The New York Times, Time, The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, STAT, and HuffPost.

He is a regularly sought-after speaker having given over 200 invited talks and keynote presentations both in the U.S. and around the world. He and his work have regularly appeared on TV, radio, and leading print media such as The New York Times, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, CBS News, Good Morning America, the BBC, AL Jazeera, Businessweek, U.S. News and World Report, Bloomberg News, Reuters, and National Public Radio (NPR). Dr. Lee received his B.A. from Harvard University, M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He completed his internal medicine residency training at the University of California, San Diego. His Instagram and Twitter handles are @Bruce Y Lee.